Blogs Will Kill The Web Design Star
I think the business of website development is going through a major shift. With the power of current blog platforms and the ease with which they can be used as a valid alternative to traditional websites, I believe small web shops are going to have to adapt and/or specialize in something else or their business is dead meat.
In the good old days (about four years ago) you could build a website from the bottom up if you were talented enough or you had to pay someone to build a website for you. Fact is, many of those sites amount to little more than what we see on blogs today, but it was the only way to really get a decent, well branded web presence. There were some do it yourself type of website tools with templates you could choose from, but by and large if you were serious about being online you didn’t go that route.
That’s not the case anymore. Blog platforms can be customized beautifully these days with a fraction of the development time and cost because the entire backend of the site is already done. That’s a huge shift for the web design business because traditional shops (and I’ve worked for and with some) would have their own code set for building sites or they would start from scratch. Customers got charged like crazy for sites that would really be no big deal in this day and age. The worst part is not everyone knows this and some web shops are still selling their services like always.
All I’m saying here is that it’s no longer necessary to look only to a web design firm to build your web presence. My friend Cory Miller began a venture a while back to start building on Wordpress and selling the designs so he can deliver an entire web presence on a platform he didn’t have to build. You can check it out at iThemes.com and you’ll see the designs are really sharp. Nathan Moore and the Anthology Creative crew did my blog on Wordpress and I love it. It’s clean, simple, gives me everything I could want, and it’s a full website that covers everything I need.
This web development shift is great for customers. They are generally better looking sites that are easy to manage and much cheaper than what some companies charge.
If this feels a little too doom and gloom for the web designers then you’re not seeing the opportunities. I actually think the future is bright in the web design/development world if they adapt to the changes or become specialized. Here are three areas that seem wide open for growth:
- Blog Design Specialists: Blogs have emerged as a great platform for a web presence that meets the needs of what many people want when they think about getting a website. The web designers who are focused on providing a great web presence with a focus on ease of use, function, and beauty will do well. Their counterparts building sites the old way, however, will still be charging clients to use some bulky, proprietary stuff their company is married to.
- The Flash/Controlled Media Specialists: Some people want to control the entire online experience for users and Flash or some other controlled online media like that is always going to be a preference for those people. Blogs won’t cut it in that regard and the specialists who can do this well will likely be in demand for a long time.
- The Big, Bad, Complex Website Specialist: There are some websites that are just too big and bad to warrant being built on a blog platform. You’re not going to see Amazon.com or anything like that switching over to a blog so there will always be a need for the large and highly complex site specialists.
I should note if anyone is wondering…I don’t build websites. I know enough HTML to get into trouble and my design skills are mediocre at best. This entire perspective is based on the opportunities for consumers and my observations about how the market is changing. It’s as simple as this: the days of paying more than five or ten thousand dollars for a website are gone except in some select scenarios. In many cases you can get more than enough for what you need for under $1000. Just be aware of that next you want a website.
Tags: blog design, blog hosting, blogs, new media, web 2.0, web design, web development, websites, Wordpress
April 4th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Hi Bill. I agree with much of what you’re saying here and I especially see the benefits of inexpensive yet robust solutions like Word Press for the small business. No doubt, design and programming services will feel the pressure as solutions like this become viable platforms.
However, I’ve always said (in anticipation of the day when the killer, dirt-simple web development platform arrives) that skilled and experienced web designers and development companies will still be worth their pay. That’s because most companies, even if they have the tools and ability to build a website on their own, simply don’t know how to best use the tools.
And I don’t think the final resulting site needs to necessarily be terribly complex (Word Press might still be a viable technological platform) yet the strategy, structure, positioning and content strategy may still need to be quite sophisticated.
Serious web strategy and implementation is extremely costly to companies (in terms of time and opportunity cost, not just money). So hiring an expert firm with lots of experience is well worth their financial investment. Free platforms may reduce aspects of an overall web development project’s cost, but expertise will always come at a premium that’s well worth the investment.
Of course this opinion is from an owner of a one of the “Big, Bad, Complex Website Specialists.”
Thanks for calling attention to Word Press, it is indeed developing into a fantastic option for low cost development platforms!
April 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am
[...] breakfast buddy Bill Seaver posted a real interesting post on his blog titled “Blogs Will Kill The Web Design Star”. I started a comment to it but it quickly grew into a post by itself. So before you read this, go [...]
April 4th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Thanks Eric. You guys do great stuff and I certainly see Newfangled Web Factory as one of the great companies doing big, bad, complex websites. I think the way you guys approach website development will keep you around for a long time.
You also bring up a good point about the enduring need for web strategy. With the easy access to tools the need for people to simply come along side and provide strategic help may very well become a small industry itself.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Bill, excellent article …. I think you make some great observations about the web and hit our business on the head! Thanks for the links.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
[...] on the head and makes some great observations about the web design business with this post called Blogs Will Kill The Web Design Star More Articles Custom WordPress ThemesCustom Blog Design PackageDesign or Content: [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
hi Bill… i know what you wanted to say. i agree with you. blogs are very common now a days. i also have blogs. i can relate on what you have stated here. in my blog, i can choose templates whatever i want. and i can change it anytime. i just click and that’s it, no need for me to change the code or everything just to get what i wanted to happen on my blog. it’s in the page already. but there are also others that really code to build their websites. in our school, we code using HTML to build a site. but later on, we use dreamweaver to do it. others are dependent also in the net. that’s really the fact of life. the things really change and we can’t change that fact. have a nice day!